Legislator’s report targets species act

Washington The Endangered Species Act has failed to help most threatened and endangered species, according to a report Tuesday by a GOP lawmaker who has made rewriting the law a top priority.

Environmentalists and Democrats criticized the report prepared for Rep. Richard Pombo, R-Calif., chairman of the House Resources Committee, as political and misleading.

The report by the panel’s oversight and investigations staff doesn’t include independent investigations, but draws on existing data to highlight the record of the landmark 1973 law.

Among its findings:

“Ten of nearly 1,300 species of plants and animals listed under the act have recovered.

“Of the species, 77 percent have met 0 percent to 25 percent of the Fish and Wildlife Service’s recovery objectives. Only 2 percent have met 76 percent to 100 percent of recovery objectives.

“The recovery status of 60 percent of listed species is “uncertain” or “declining” while 30 percent of species are stable; 6 percent are improving; and 35 are classified as possibly extinct.

Boston-bound jet diverted to Maine

Bangor, Maine An Alitalia jet heading to Boston was diverted to Maine on Tuesday because a passenger’s name matched one on the government’s no-fly list, but the FBI later said the man was not a suspected terrorist.

Flight 618 from Milan, Italy, landed at Bangor International Airport, where the passenger and his luggage were removed. The plane took off an hour later for Boston. The FBI questioned the man and decided not to arrest him, a spokeswoman said.

The no-fly list identifies people who have known or suspected links to terrorism, or who have been otherwise identified as a threat to aviation, the TSA said.

Bangor has become a focus point for problem flights because it is the last major U.S. airport for jets heading across the Atlantic and the first for incoming flights.

Mothers’ drug intake may threaten infants

Chicago Women who take Prozac or certain other antidepressants late in pregnancy raise the risk that their babies will suffer jitteriness, irritability and serious respiratory problems during their first couple of weeks, researchers say.

Babies born to women taking antidepressants in the last three months of pregnancy were three times more likely to develop drug-related symptoms than those born to women who did not use the drugs or took them only in early pregnancy, according to a University of Pittsburgh study that pooled previous research. The study was published in today’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

Most of the symptoms are mild, but some require hospitalization, the researchers said. The drugs involved include Prozac, Paxil and other antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs; and sero-tonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors, which include Effexor.

Owner of 2 theaters bans Jane Fonda film

Elizabethtown, Ky. The owner of two Kentucky theaters has refused to show the new Jane Fonda film “Monster- in-Law” because of the activist role the actress took during the Vietnam War.

Ike Boutwell, who trained pilots during the Vietnam War, displayed pictures of Fonda clapping with a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft crew in 1972 outside the Elizabethtown Movie Palace to show his disapproval. The marquee outside Showtime Cinemas in nearby Radcliff reads: “No Jane Fonda movie in this theater.”

Both theaters are just a few miles from the Army post of Fort Knox, south of Louisville.

Fonda has apologized for being photographed on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun, but not for opposing the war.